Dubai Familiarity Trip 26th Feb – 03 Mar 2010
Courtesy of DTCM, we were invited as guests of the Dubai Government, Arabian Explorers and Virgin Atlantic to spend four full days on familiarity visits in hopes to enhance our understanding Dubai as a holiday destination, in particular for families. Here is my rather long account (with funny bits) of what I got up to.
Friday 26th Feb
I left the office and made my way down to Heathrow after spending a morning drinking tea with great difficulty as my hands were shaking so much. I arrived at Heathrow two hours before the proposed meeting time at 6.15pm.
I met the group, a 15 strong herd of UK-wide travel agents including two of our Thomas Cook cohorts from London and South Wales, and we proceeded to check-in. Our two leaders from DTCM, Ian Scott and Kevin Vaghela were tasked with steering us through all the formalities and had the unpleasant and stressful job of waiting for late-comers. Unfortunately, as it is the busy season the flight was booked to capacity and we were not upgraded. My disappointment was assuaged, however, as we were given the chance to spend our pre-flight time in the Virgin Atlantic Executive Lounge where I cashed in on my experience by indulging in two glasses of wine, a plate of seared salmon, a copy of Hello, the Indie and Heat and all the sweets my carry-on could take courtesy of Mr Branson. This is where my affectionate nick-name of Light-Fingers may have begun to take root.
The flight was not the most pleasant, delayed by an hour and as two infants were seated behind us, one would switch manically between hysterical laughter and piercing shrieks of displeasure, the other vomited at every turbulent shudder. Still, one plate of sweaty pasta and half a film later I managed to sneak in two hours of sleep on the seven hour flight.
Saturday 27th Feb
Off the plane and onto our Arabian Explorers minibus for a short drive through Dubai to the beach. We were greeted onto the coach with the first of many yoghurt-pots of tepid water which were sipped carefully as the favoured style of driving in Dubai is one of a mentalist in a hurry. Still, this gave us a good first taste of the sprawling metropolis and traditional, flat-roofed houses were replaced by towering skyscrapers and great billboards depicting the Sheikh Mohammed in various poses. The developing metro line sweeps over the highways and the newly constructed metro stations fit in well with the otherwise sci-fi styled conurbation.
We arrived at the Oasis Beach Tower, or OBT, and were given two hours to power-nap, unpack, wash and recharge. I shared my luxurious apartment with three other girls from various small travel operators. The apartments covered a huge amount of floor space. Cool, tiled floors, squashy sofas, long dining table, a massive plasma in each room and a very complicated coffee machine (plus a kitchen that I now enviously covet) made up our little apartment. My room boasted a beautifully tiled bathroom with Elemis toiletries and the most enormous bed I have ever seen with two double beds pushed together to make a sleeping den fit for a queen. Too excited to sleep, I showered, pulled on my waffle dressing gown and sat on the balcony with a pot of Earl Grey and some plums from the welcome basket and watched the Gulf. Then I came back inside as the sand storm was ruining my little picnic somewhat.
We were given a tour round the 45 storey OBT by Jennifer Frank, a German expat who works for the Jebel Ali chain. We were given the opportunity to inspect all the facilities however, owing to a lack of sleep I find it hard to recall any of the tour so it is a good thing I actually stayed there for two nights. The tour was then followed by a hosted buffet lunch at the hotel, the first of many. After lunch we had free time before our tour and hosted dinner at the Ritz-Carlton and so a group of us girls got some towels from the pool and made our way down to the beach where we all promptly fell asleep for 2 hours.
That evening we made our way through Dubai, down the twinkly-lit palm tree-lined marina boulevards towards the Ritz Carlton, however we made a detour to the Sheraton where Ian Scott bought us a round of drinks. They do excellent cocktails at the Sheraton (mine was a gin fizz) and their bar nuts are very tasty, however the indoor route to the terrace is not for the faint-hearted as you get a bit hot-boxed by the shisha smokers en route. At the Ritz-Carlton next door to our OBT which dwarfs the four-storey traditional-styled hotel. We were greeted with a glass of fruit juice and sugared dates. The impressive lobby was decorated with marble carvings and boasted a beautiful petal-filled fountain. We inspected all the different room types including the luxurious suites and then made our way down to the Splendido restaurant for our à la carte dinner. Our banquet was incredible, delicious wine (my glass was never empty as the waiters kept on giving me surreptitious refills) and a selection of canapés followed by delicious grilled octopus with celeriac purée to start, the main dish was a rare fillet of beef cooked to absolute juicy perfection and accompanied by frois gras and a medley of diced apricot brioche and portobello mushrooms. The desert could have killed me – a glossy chocolate cake with a tart pomegranate sorbet and a little pile of juicy poached strawberries. After lots of wine and a great deal of laughter (a running gag about what a Bath Butler may be that degenerated into a manifestation of a man in a Borat mankini with a KFC chicken drumstick between his teeth with a cigar and whisky on a tray) we all stumbled back to the OBT for a very good night’s sleep.
Sunday 28th Feb
Sunday began with a long shower in my OBT bathroom which could have happily housed several people quite comfortably. After some lazing about in my waffle bathrobe I joined the rest of the girls for breakfast. Owing to the lack of pork in Dubai (being a Muslim nation) I sampled the delights of their kind attempts at an English Breakfast including beef bacon and veal sausages. Also on offer were many different kinds of curry, aromatic vegetable stews and a lovely cake display. I opted for fruit and a light grilled breakfast followed by some cake and tea.
Then it was onto the bus again to meet Jennifer Frank at the Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa outside of the town equidistant between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We were met by a friendly peacock who, much to the amusement of the team, proceeded to follow me around the vast, marble entrance (I think he liked my skirt) until Jennifer took us inside to inspect the hotel. As Dubai’s only All Inclusive property the hotel cut a fine figure as a family resort enjoying beach and desert views and encompassing all the needs of an active family. The rooms were beautifully decorated with a large number of adjoining rooms for families. The rest of our tour was conducted via golf buggy. The Jebel Ali is famed for its golf course, marina and of course the spa whose flag-rock exterior and patio was occupied by a gaggle of peahens. The animal sightings continued as we made our way to the stables where the beautiful Arab horses lived. Tall, muscular and calm, I couldn’t help but stroke their long noses and hope I’d be offered the chance to ride one. I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a teenager but the urge was most definitely there. Being led towards the stables were two beige camels with the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. They were polo camels and so very well behaved.
Even though it was at full capacity during the most popular time of year, the resort never felt crowded, in particular by the poolside where there was plenty of space and plenty of free sun loungers. The inspection was rounded off with a sea-side three-course meal on a beautiful shaded terrace (not before I induged in a spot of falconry, naturally).
We had a salad to start followed by fish and chips (where the fish was in fact the delicacy, John Dory and not chippy’s frozen haddock). We managed a little fruit then drove back into Dubai to get ready for the Desert Safari.
After a quick clothes-change we boarded three 4X4 vehicles and set off for the desert. After wrestling with the traffic out of the city (jam apparently caused my one random police officer stopping vehicles arbitrarily) we parked outside a tiny shop on the edge of the vast, red desert. After waiting for the other cars to rejoin the group we were off and hurtling up and down the steep dunes at break-neck speed only stopping at certain points to take pictures of the sunset.
Mohammed stopped me to inform me that a scorpion had climbed up my trouser leg. After screaming for help and frantically shaking and slapping my legs I realised it was a mean joke that they played regularly on gullible-looking travellers.
I won’t lie. I was quite fond of Mohammed, it was hard not to find a little place in your heart for him. Sadly it was never to be. Plus, it would have confirmed all of my partner’s suspicions that I would run off with a devilishly handsome Arab, and I was never going to give him the satisfaction of being right about that insulting and utterly unfounded presumption…
By nightfall we were parked outside the Bedouin camp in the heart of the desert. We were greeted by two camels and a delicious plate of dates. We found low seats and cushions under one of the tented areas and helped ourselves to more yogurt water. Mohammed took me to get some henna done and I am now the proud canvas for a very beautiful flowing pattern of roses and thorns from my left index finger up to the middle of my arm. Food was served, a massive barbecue of kofti lamb, chicken kababs and beef skewers (all variations on the common shish kebab) and mountains of salad, tabbouleh and flatbread. I found this part tricky as my henna was still drying.
After dinner, a quick trip to the shisha tent where after some considerable peer pressure I had one go and ended up spluttering toasted marshmallow-flavoured smoke all over myself. The smoke smelled so lovely but I was left with a hacking cough for the rest of the night. Asthmatics and non-smokers beware – shisha isn’t the key to looking cool and exotic in the desert although watching the locals and regulars puff little smoke rings and look all dreamy and relaxed was nice to be involved in.
After coughing up a lung and pretty much destroying my image of being a well-spoken, elegant British girl to all within the camp, Mohammed included, I decided to redeem myself by going on a camel ride. She was beautiful. I couldn’t stop myself, I had heard all the horror stories about camels smelling bad and spitting but I didn’t care, I was stroking her nose and neck and wrapping my arms around her because she was the most lovely thing on four legs that I had ever seen. She must be used to having people around because she was very receptive to me giving her a little cuddle before I jumped aboard. She stood up quite quickly which gave me a shock! I never thought they were so tall but you certainly feel high up when they reach their full height. After a short trot around the camp (and one sudden moment where she decided to sit down again) it was over and I went to find my next challenge – sandboarding.
Basically, sandboarding is snowboarding except easier and warmer. After a cardiac-arrest-inducing climb to the top of a very steep dune I decided to wimp out and sit on the board which then ground very slowly to a halt about a quarter way from the bottom. Much to the hilarity of my audience. After that I stood up and went much faster. I recommend it to everybody.
We drove back to the Barasti Bar in the Marina for a quick tipple courtesy of DTCM which then developed into gatecrashing Buddah Bar at the Grosvenor (residents only and black-tie preferred) fully aware that there was more sand in our hair than in the desert and our rough-and-ready clothing was a little scruffy compared to the collection of Armani suits and Balenciaga purses we elbowed past to get in. A late night taxi-ride later and we were home and having our last night at the Oasis Beach Tower.
Monday 1st Mar
An early start with a brisk check-out followed by another beef bacon breakfast, then into the minivan for a ride down the Marina to Atlantis the Palm. Dubai is not a town that accommodates the avid pedestrian or cyclist well as the only route to the Palm seems to be that of a suspended highway not dissimilar to Spaghetti Junction. Passing rows and rows of mansions and beautiful flat-topped homes, we veered into the massive grounds of Atlantis and got a sense of the true scale of the building with its famous Arabic archway.
Luckily we were allowed in through the lobby which is normally a residents-only area, where we awaited our guide. We then were whisked up to the famous Bridge Suite which encompasses the entire archway connecting the two halves of the striking building and featured on last year’s X-Factor. I have never seen such a beautiful suite. Each room was like a cathedral in size, massive ceilings, beautiful decoration, ornate sculpture and towering doors. You could actually smuggle yourself in there and never have to leave even if there are guests in residence as there are so many rooms you need never come across one another and live blissfully as ships in the night.
After that, the standard rooms should have been a bit less impressive however I was equally taken aback by the care taken into the décor as well as the size and fabulous views overlooking the Palm and its many fronds as well as Aquaventure and the vast Gulf.
The Lost Chambers were to follow and after laughing hysterically at the scuba cleaner inside the huge aquarium who was pulling faces while he scrubbed the windows, we were led inside the aquarium and viewed the different tanks of fish. I was not a fan of the jellyfish. I have had a fear of them since I was a girl but for the sake of taking a decent photograph I braved the glass only to shriek and scamper away as one billowed itself up onto the glass by my face. Call me a wimp. I am.
After the Lost Chambers we toured Aquaventure and the fantastic vertical drop flume carved into a replica Aztec pyramid. We watched several children plummet like falling stalactites all stremlined and swift – then they were followed by a gangly man who proceeded to scream with terror as he plunged with arms and legs flailing only to come out of the other side of the tunnel at the bottom (through the shark aquarium) with his head and feet and the wrong ends.
After a short trip to the gift shop we piled back intot he minivan and drove a short way down the beach to the Jumeirah Beach passing the Sheikh’s wives’ palaces in different themes as well as the Black Prince’s palace (completely black marble, obviously).
At Jumeriah Beach we were met by Mohamad and Maricon (Mohamad being Jennifer from Jebel Ali’s husband) who took us around the family hotel’s lovely rooms and suites. The grounds are undoubtedly very beautiful and the atmosphere was extremely playful with the executive children’s lounge making a particularly impressive impression. We were led into the beautiful buffet for a high-piled fest of hoummus and flatbread, salad, sushi, curry, grilled meat and topped off with a selection of dainty little puddings, I myself partook in the dolly’s tea party apple cake, two scoops of ice cream and a little chocolate truffle.
Then it was back on the battle bus to the luxurious Madinaz where we were treated to a guided tour around the unique, luxurious tiled interiors and the amazing suites. After deciding to live in one of the suites’ sunken bathtubs, I was removed from the building and put onto an Abra, a water taxi and we chugged along the turquoise creek past bars and houses to the Al Qasr villas on the water’s edge with private jetties.
After an abra ride back to the Madinaz, we said our farewells to Mohamad and Maricon and bundled back on the bus to the Burj Al Arab. Here is where Light-Fingers did her best work. After having our hands sprinkled with fragrant rosewater and watching the playful water display on the fish-scale staggered fountain, we were greeted by the hotel’s spokeswoman who gave us a brisk tour of one of the suites. A shower big enough for a rugby team, mirrors over the bed and enough gold to make Solomon blush (to paraphrase a great comedian). I couldn’t help myself but take the opportunity to swipe some freebies – a Hermes shoeshine sponge and a Burj Al Arab emblazoned bar of soap and a couple of branded pencils to name but some of my bounty. And after a whistlestop tour and a brisk ushering into another cosy lift, we were back to the Qamardeen to dress for The Palace, Old Town.
A hotel representative met us in the grand lobby area and proceeded to take us upstairs to view their entry-level rooms and suites. The theme of old-style elegance permeated the building and happily, we were led outside to a private balcony to view the fountain show on the water stretching from the Dubai Mall to the Address, the Palace and the Burj Kalifa. Unfortunately, due to a storm warning the fountain show was postponed and we made our way down to the restaurant for another buffet dinner.
I helped myself to hoummus and flatbread to start, delicious grilled jumbo prawns, kofti lamb, curried cauliflower and tasty pilaf as a main and to finish I indulged in two big scoops of pistachio ice cream which, I was told by the head chef as he handed me his card, went excellently with cola bottle gummies. I obliged and was pleasantly surprised and slept exceedingly well to prepare myself for the final full day.
Tuesday 2nd Mar
After opening my curtains to discover that Dubai was experiencing the same weather you would expect from Fort William only 10 or so degrees higher, our trip to Wild Wadi Waterpark at Jumeirah Beach was regrettably cancelled.
We piled into the coach for a trip to the Dubai Mall, the biggest in the world. We rocked up to the side-of-a-Tesco-sized viewing panel of the aquarium opposite a very tempting sweet market and watched the gigantic fish sucker the glass and glide about, trying to quell thoughts of how it made the news last week owing to a tiny crack in the glass. We were met by Oksana, a formidable yet petite spokeswoman for the retail paradise who took us through the aquarium to view the terrifying dead eyes of the sharks in the dark cavern at the beginning to the swirling schools of fish in the lighter areas. Then upstairs to the sealife zoo where we got a tour of the otter and penguin enclosures and got the chance to see the aquarium’s surface. Then we trekked across the huge concourse to Sega Republic, a small theme park and games arcade all under the mall roof. We sampled a lot of the rides free of charge and unfortunately I got the (now wholly undesirable and embarrassing) reputation for being a screamer. I just like screaming, what can I say? Finally we toured Kidzania. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what Kidzania was but it starts by checking your child in to a miniature Emirates Airlines check-in desk and following them in to a very respectable plastic mini-world full of real-life shops in miniature where your child can participate in the running of a business or be involved in a little industry all the while earning Kidzania currency and learning thanks to the enthusiastic staff who shuttled them about. Seriously, a miniature television station, hair salon, Waitrose, HSBC and Emirates Airlines were only a few of the many many places your kid could stumble into and have a whale of a time.
After the Dubai Mall we went to Al Manzil, sister of the Qamardeen for a brief tour and lunch, the last hosted lunch of the trip. Hoummus, flatbread, curry and ice cream followed by peppermint tea rounded off my free gourmet dinners and we went back to the Qamardeen to get ready for an afternoon of shopping.
We found ourselves in a funny little market place full of people waiting for you to stop so you could be approached. Now we were warned about this market and apparently it is all kosher (pardon the inappropriate use of Jewish lingo regarding a Muslim custom but the word fits). Basically what happens is this, you are in the market for a good counterfeit Fendi bag, right? So you are approached by a man who has your Fendi bag and leads you behind a curtain, through a locked door, relocks the door and you browse his wares. Scary? No. Weird? Yes. These shops packed to bursting with contraband are labyrinthine in design with book cases on hinges leading to other rooms so as to ensure maximum shelf-space. Staircases down, down and down with no exit besides the way you just came, and full of highly dodgy but very lovable Arab salesmen. I have never seen such a convincing, if slightly dusty, specimens of highly tailored fake goods. I coveted a patent, red and pink floral Chanel clutch however bottled out of making a purchase because the haggling process is a little daunting. Basically the rule is you are told the price. 570dh. No. You go down to 10% so 57dh. Sounds ridiculous but generally you both argue away until you reach between 45 and 60%. If your salesman goes quiet or shows you the door, you have gone too far. As long as he keeps talking you know he’s willing to be pushed. One of our number was given the deathly silent treatment followed by a swift frogmarching to the shop door after a bitter battle over a tea towel. I can’t handle that kind of pressure.
Five postcards, a wall hanging and a stuffed camel later I was in a taxi hurtling back to the Palace for the fountain show. We sat and had a drink and some bar nuts before going back up to the balcony to watch the show (after being showed upstairs by a very smart and adorable Clark Kent lookalike). I think we all wanted to enjoy that fantasy but unfortunately our evening was coming to an end and we all needed to get some food and blitz the mall before the inevitable packing debacle that would follow prior to our 5.30am wake-up the next morning.
Wednesday 3rd Mar
The final morning and after a great deal of squashing, breaking and sitting-on, I got my full suitcase downstairs, checked-out and joined the girls for breakfast.
On the bus to the airport we gave our hosts, Ian and Kevin our present (matching T-shirts emblazoned with the trip title and Bath Butler to commemorate our hilarious dinner at the Ritz-Carlton) and we made our way to the airport.
I returned to Peterborough weighed down with duty-free gin and chocolate at 5.00pm that day where a kind man carried my suitcase all the way from platform three for me. I wept with gratitude.
Filed under: Business, travel, Work, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: aquarium, Atlantis, Burj, Dubai, Dubai Mall, hotels, Jebel Ali, Jumeirah, Oasis Beach Tower, Qamardeen, tourism, travel, UAE, Writing
Every cloud
At work we have been enjoying what they call ‘down time’. Much like Supernanny’s naughty step, ‘down time’ is when IT take a look at the whole publishing system and what we complain about and screw up and then punish us by putting it offline to tamper with and ‘improve’. Yes, this is very dull. No, I do not expect that to interest you in any way whatsoever however it is important to explain in order to set the scene.
The system is down so what is an editor to do with her day? What ever doesn’t involve IT, basically. So lots of integrity checking previous publications and catching up with some housekeeping, filing, generally the sorts of tasks that could wait five years and still nobody would give a flying funicular whether it was done or now.
Needless to say, after a week of wasting my time and hardly feeling like I was in the beating heart centre of travel writing, I was wondering what it was all about? I couldn’t remember a time when a red, flashing deadline was charging towards me and when chasing a contact seemed like a daily life-or-death challenge. Nope. Boredom really does make you question everything, partly because, I suspect, you have too much time on your hands and so spend your days thinking too much and sliding helplessly into some sort of wretched office-based ennui.
Literally seconds before I was going to make my way over to the store cupboard to find some packing cord to hang myself with, my boss asks to have a word with me and I don’t need my notebook or anything.
SHIT.
She’s spotted that I’ve been pissing and moaning about being bored to anybody who will listen, she’s cottoned on that I’m constantly querying and/or taking the piss out of the systems the corporation takes pride in, she’s got fed up with me and has found some dirt on me to fire me for. After all, I am still in my first six months ‘probation’ and in theory could be booted out without so much as a shoebox with which to gather up the crap I use to de-corporate my desk within the otherwise utterly homogenous supermarket floor-style black-trouser-wearing organisation I call my place of work.
We sit down in full view of everybody on one of the ‘creative’ desks. How humiliating. Given a short, sharp disciplinary for everybody to see and recount with cruel embelishments to all who were absent at the time. I’ll bet this is about the Guardian jobs page. I’m looking for a job for a friend, everybody knows that! I’m not vaguely interested in Arts and Heritage. Or maybe it is about ASOS.com. Shit. They know I’ve used company hours to put in a short little transaction to buy a really nice skirt, some earrings and some camis that were going for nothing on the clearance pages. Damn ASOS.
Just a quick word, Rose. I’ve spoken to **** and to ****** and something has come up.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Oh, really? Should I be worried? Oh, crap, way to sound guilty. What the FUCK have I done now?
It’s nothing to worry about, we’ve had something come up.
Lowering the boom. Steel yourself, Rose. Clench buttocks. That usually helps.
Would you be interested in going to Dubai for us?
Nnnnngh! Buttock clenching without making a face uses a lot of concentration. Hang on, what? Huh?
Dubai. Are you interested in going over to Dubai on a familiarity trip?
YES! Uh oh, Sales ladies all turned their heads. Was that a bit Meg Ryan?
Great! It’s going to be from the end of… blah blah blah
Dubai! DUBAI! Shit, what currency do they even use? I’m going to need a new pair of sunglasses. Crap! I’m going to burn so badly. Did I throw away that kaftan I never wore. Will my GHDs work in Dubai? Crap, my hair will look so bad. Oh, wait, won’t I have to wear a head scarf? GHD problem solved! Oh, wait, Dubai is a bit different. I wonder if I’ll be flying business class. I hope I’m not sharing a room with anybody, at least not anybody weird.
… blah blah blah… so that’s about all I know right now. If you’re interested then I can get your details over to them today.
What, crap, I should have listened to all of that. Yes, absolutely.
So it turns out that trips like these do not come round as often as you’d think. The company has reps in all countries so there is really no need to go out there except when there are a lot of new attractions and hotels. Photography and those higher up go a lot more frequently that we lowly publishing types who merely write the copy that wins us customers thus bringing in the dough to pay everybody…
Not long after the meeting, my team mates were already writing lists for me. What they want from the hotels (toilet paper from the Burj seems to be a popular request), what they need me to ask hoteliers, various jobs I am an expert at (apparently this is a familiarity trip for Sales professionals and so have to get accustomed to introducing myself as somebody vaguely good at sales and marketing although I am assured nobody will ask me anything about my job), and of course lists of imaginary things I should do.
Here is the low-down of what I am supposed to be doing. I leave at the end of the month for five days in Dubai along with 15 other travel industry professionals from the UK’s various travel organisations. We will be staying in two hotels each for two nights, one of which has an en suit bathroom which does not have opaque walls… could be an issue if I am sharing a bedroom. There I will have all my meals paid for because they will usually be concurrent with meetings with Dubai’s tourism elite. One meal will be a black-tie event at the Burj, and one meal will be in a specially erected gazebo in the desert after off-roading across the dunes. All expenses paid, 5 days in Dubai all in exchange for some cushy dinners, some CDs of photos of 5 star resorts and a wicked tan.
How, why, huh? Only because a gun dropped out, Sales are hell for leather (it is the busy season), and when the offer went to my boss she thought it’d be bad form to take the first offer that came to the new team and when she offered it to the next best person it turns out they don’t have a passport (???).
So on the pyramid of ‘who gets to go on trips’ I am pretty much making my arse-print alongside the dandelions and yet in a very lucky turn of events I am going to be flown out to one of the shiniest cities in the world and certainly the coolest place to be in the Middle East.
So while the system is down, at least I can be writing out my inventory for what to pack.
Do you know how
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Tags: boredom, Business, down time, Dubai, fired, Journalism, meeting, office, sales, travel writing
I was coming home in the car tonight from work, mum was driving as it is her car, and I thought to myself, ‘my mother is driving me home’. Not only was she driving me home but she was driving me back to the home we share with my brothers, father and cat, and then she would put on dinner and make sure nobody was making any noise after 11pm because my youngest brother is still at school.
I am 23 and I live at home with my parents. I did not expect my 23 year old self to still be living this way.
In all honesty, I don’t know what I expected. A flatshare with friends in London maybe? A window box and a wall hanging from Thailand in an open-plan bedsit I could call my own? A cosy one-bedroom for me and my boyfriend near the bus stop?
I have none of that. I am 23, living at home. Like so many others my age and older.
When I first realised I had to move back home with my parents I was still studying at Salford University and I was actually on the internet after a day of serious flat-hunting with somebody. I jumped the moat of denial, logged onto my bank website and swallowed down the fact that even if I got a job tomorrow I would never be able to pay my way. I called home that night.
I have been back, after living in my little student bedsit in Salford for a year, for seven months. At first it was a welcome vacation but now it is practically a joke. I feel like the eldest child in the sand pit who has been made to sit there to look after a smaller child and feels really daft. I think it is the feeling of having outgrown something, of having already made the leap and then being reined back in to the pen after having a gallop in the real world.
Had my parents not downsized when I went to study my undergraduate degree, things would have been marginally better. Using their optimistic foresight, my parents moved out of the four-bedroom family home into a two-bedroom bungalow with the intention of extending two extra box rooms and furnishing it for three plus guests. Sadly this meant my parents sleeping in the living room for a year and (when I visited home and for an entire summer) my lodgings being no more than a bunk bed I shared with my youngest brother (other brother doing GCSEs so had own room).
Now, thank Christ, I have my own bedroom however it was designed to be a weekend room slash storage room. Space is limited, walls are thin and bed time is dictated. The only thing missing is a blazer, really.
Sob-story aside, this is a very real issue. Although I work, it makes more sense for me to be at home even though it is a crippling blow to one’s social, love and independent life. Living away from home would mean higher rent, travel expenses I would struggle with and possibly a flatshare with somebody awful. Home is here, warm, there is always food, the rent is cheap and mum works near my office so I hitch a ride. Right now, I have enough money in the bank for train fares, the odd new work top and to top up my phone. Having recently not been able to afford any of those things, why would I rush away to bean counting after having to do that for five years?
Even while job hunting, my applications were often rejected because my home address was too far away from the job itself – even Manchester jobs cited that as a reason. So if it came to it, would I have to live here in the rural arse of England forever because it is the only place that HR departments think I am local to? Am I destined to live with or near my parents for the rest of my life? Are we going to be one of those weird families who all live on the same road like Gwen and Uncle Bryn? Works for them, I suppose…
My parents want us all to find independence but right now, if it means the load is a bit lighter because I help my brother with his homework, do the ironing in front of Come Dine with Me every Sunday and go out to do the shop plus bring in X amount each month then it isn’t all bad for them either.
But the stagnation of it starts to affect you and right now I’d rather be a church mouse than one in the glass tank at the pet shop. In the cold light of day, however, the depressing list of pros and cons lurches back into view and I come to my senses.
Filed under: family, Work, Writing | 1 Comment
Tags: brothers, bungalow, chores, family, independence, life, living at home, money, parents, routine, Work
Two thousand and tense
There is an air of desperation about the blinking-newborn days of this box-fresh decade. Is it just me or is the media a little (to use a Christmas cracker punchline) tense?
I have a few ideas of my own hypothesising why this great funk has swept over the nation like so many cold fronts sweeping in from Scandinavia.
One idea, or maybe it is just me having a supercilious attitude towards them, are all these half-arsed, ostentatious gestures of martyrdom, commonly referred to as ‘resolutions’.
The media is having its annual buffet of January clichés and the Nolans, Davina McCall and Jesse Wallace have predictably risen to the bait and are already rubbing their hands together with glee knowing their life-altering offerings to the public will coax the dregs of leaky overdrafts into their sweaty, Lycra pockets. You know the sorts that will be taken in. Bleating office-types who confess to getting up early for the Next sale at 5am on Boxing Day because they have such dull lives they have to manifest a crazy story out of thin air to recite to the rest of the coop by coming up with pap like ‘giving up alcohol during the week except when I really need it’, and ‘crisps but not ready salted’ etc. You can smell the desperation from the other side of the doors of Bannatyne’s – so many people desperate to walk at a leisurely pace on a treadmill and then go for a slap-up curry because they’ve earned it, haven’t they?
The need for self improvement, the need to make a special effort this year. For those few who succeed, I applaud you, but you are merely a squeak of a minority.
Maybe it is the parade of the freaks marching, or rather gushing, their hungry bodies into the terminal Big Brother House last night. I am going to try to stop myself using the oft misrepresented word, celebrity. I did not watch it, I was on Twitter whinging about something and the world started gasping in only the way Twitter can gasp. Remember, like when we all watched Question Time and typed ‘wanker’ each time the cameraman panned over one guest in particular who needn’t be referenced by name.
Mention of little-knowns like Lady Sovereign whose adorable playground rap music made her a minor ‘somebody’ and then, years later as her star was bobbing in the great crotch-warmed paddling pool of mediocrity, she deserts a gig organised (or at least starring) the Holy Roman Emperor of Gossip, Perez Hilton (albeit, TMZ beat him to the punch last year on the deaths of two fairly major celebrities). Other backwashes include Ronnie Wood’s ex-child love slave, a glamour model, a Baldwin, a woman who needs a hairbrush really badly, has never eaten solids and is somehow acclaimed for making lots of money out of the sex trade, and inexplicably Vinnie Jones.
Now if 2010 hadn’t begun to depress me and urge me to clamber about the dustbins in search of a wine bottle to sniff, then the front page splash of many newspapers this morning was just the ticket. No, it was not the football.
The election thumb war has begun, only there is a third man who isn’t involved in the struggle and is probably drinking the other two’s beers while they are distracted for a moment. With only months left before the big day that will decide which prefects will get to sit on top table, harbingers are already lamenting our hung parliament. Not only has the campaigning begun and the breakfast television rotation been stepped up, but the all-boys debating soc is going to be televised on the BBC, ITV and Sky, with Channel 4 reserved for the talking-head retrospectives under such headings as Top 50 Labour Unkept Promises and 50 Funniest Expense Claims.
It is almost as if Christmas’s annual skulk back into its dormant state like a glittering, bloated tortoise, has spooked us like trapped flies in the screen doors reminded of the fact that pay day is another four weeks away and David Tennant is no longer Doctor Who.
On that note, I am guilty of beginning my first blog of the decade in earnest motored by desperation myself. Where’s that wine bottle I put out to recycle yesterday? I need to block out the tension with some Doctor Who on iPlayer where I can’t be convinced in my nerved state to buy Coleen Nolan: Let’s Get Physical in the ad breaks for CBB. The C is for something else this year apparently.
Filed under: Christmas, News, Politics, television, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2010, Baldwin, CBB, Christmas, David Tennant, desperate, Doctor Who, election, expenses, gym, Lady Sovereign, pay day, Politics, Question Time, recession, resolutions, Tension, wine
I love karaoke, dislike talent shows. Does that make me a hypocrite? Whatever the answer, nothing will change the way I feel about the X Factor.
I make a conscious effort to steer well clear of anything that falls under the TV guide Venn diagram categories of ‘talent show’, ‘celebrity talent show’ and anything vaguely affiliated with Peirs Morgan and Simon Cowell.
Naturally, last night’s final installment of Strictly came as somewhat of a relief as it means the BBC can reclaim those lost prime time viewers from rival stations. Dave is, unsurprisingly, the biggest threat owing to its regurgitation of familiar and comforting BBC romps and panel shows that the Blackadder classes have defected to after a sharp intake of breath at the Autumn/Winter Sky Plus menu screen and reverting to hours of ‘brown suit’, ‘ice fishing’ and James May.
No matter how many hours of Dave we consume, just like telly hermits preferring our safe cavern where we can enjoy Dara O’Briain until the cows come home, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid things like X Factor and Strictly and this is why today’s verdict for Christmas Number One is playing out like West Side Story’s answer to David and Goliath (if David were a tiny anarchic rock band and Goliath were a middle aged, nipple-belted git).
About a month ago I was barraged by a few identical group requests on Facebook from friends.
Click, ignore, click, ignore, click, click. Ahhh Farmville.
I get very irritated about Facebook groups that go along the lines of ‘If this group gets 1,000,000 members then Tom will shave off his eyebrows’ and ‘RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS NO.1′ screamed (with the help of the gratuitous use of caps lock) all that irritates me about those sorts of groups.
Weeks go by, December rolls on and the X Factor is drawing to a close and the requests are growing. My brother, an avid Rage fan is hammering their revving guitar and vocals through the drywall most evenings. The press have taken an interest and Simon Cowell is actually seeing fit to comment on the matter!
I bought Killing in the Name after hearing Cowell brand the campaign ‘stupid’. I thought, anything that makes this man worry enough to speak out about it, and anything anarchically encroaching on his chart territory was well worth 99p. With a percentage going to Shelter, it seemed the modern alternative to donating to Harold Bishop’s Salvation Army brass band.
It isn’t necessarily because I enjoy Rage. I have a few of their songs that I’ve heard through friends and from films that with the convenience of iTunes I’ve been able to select without committing to a discography, however, would I ever be invited to write about musical inspirations in my life, Rage isn’t likely to feature highly. My brother is a huge fan and I can see why. Non-conformist, furious lyrics set to a drilling guitar and percussion score has its appeal. I suppose this is why the record has done so well compared to the wet, forgettable X Factor winner *quick Google search to find his name* Joe McElderry’s lacklustre cover of ‘The Climb’ by Perez Hilton’s puberty princess, Miley Cyrus.
A Facebook group with the power to harness victory (even briefly) from the clutches of the tight T shirt wearing pop overlord, Cowell isn’t the first of its kind this year. We have seen Fox News’s anxiety that a US NHS would be a vehicle for communism vehemently rebuffed by all and sundry using Twitter, similarly, we have seen Stephen Fry lasso millions of people into making a complaint about Jan Moir’s sneering speculation over the so-called subtext surrounding Steven Gately’s death and relationships. Social networking is finding powers that hadn’t been part of the plan during their inception. Powers that need to be played with.
Orwellian notions aside, if nothing else then Rage’s chart endeavours have proven rather comfortingly that a larger percentage of the population than we first thought have little time for X Factor.
For me, it is not the lyrics, and I am not even a sniffter of a die-hard Rage fan, but it is the fact that the crowd have chosen a representative for their protest vote.
Protest voting is much more valuable to history than apathy. Nobody wants the Monster Raving Loony Party in power but if it shows the suits just how many people prefer to use their votes on a ‘group’ who wish to implement a policy such as sticking reprobate youths together with superglue to prevent re-offending rather than vote for another ‘group’ whose manifesto is full of half-baked promises and whose history with you reads like a really bad bank statement then that’s good! Let them see how shit we think they are by voting for somebody who is making a point. I.E. Don’t discard your vote just because you think the Loony party will come in to power and fuck the country up, that is highly unlikely. The same goes for Rage. Don’t discard your quid for iTunes just because you don’t want them coming up on shuffle. The fact is that it counts as a point against Cowell.
In essence this is about Facebook v Simon Cowell. Rage and McWhassisface aren’t being targeted personally but they are the poster-boys… the cannon fodder.
Because of this I bought Killing in the Name. It is actually a very good record to have on loud while vacuuming, my previous favourite being Bat out of Hell. If you have no love for X Factor and, like me, gave a little cheer when the last nail in the coffin for Big Brother was hammered in this year, then you should have turned off QI and shelled out 99p for Rage. Alas, the votes are being counted and the ‘elected’ Christmas number 1, the final one for this decade, will be announced shortly.
In the end, it doesn’t even matter if Rage don’t win. After all, shows like X Factor do have the sort of gravitational pull that can attract entire supermarkets full of doe-eyed Cliff Richard calendar-owning mouth-breathers into parting with their cash and their evenings, but just like any protest vote, it is better that it happens than doesn’t.
Next year’s plan – find a similar way of pissing off that wank-merchant Piers Morgan and getting his smarmy-git, idiot-journalist face off telly for the rest of eternity.
Merry Christmas!
Filed under: Christmas, Facebook, Music, Politics, television, Twitter, Uncategorized, Writing | 1 Comment
Tags: anarchy, Christmas, Christmas Number 1, Dave, Facebook, iTunes, Joe McElderry, Killing in the name, monster raving loony, Music, piers morgan, pop, protest, Rage Against the Machine, rock, Simon Cowell, TV, Twitter, X Factor
Coaching for Christmas
Mid-November is here and so Christmas is in full swing. There is no denying it now, and many of us have already sipped from the prohibited-till-advent Yuletide cup and enjoyed a contraband mince pie in greedy privacy.
Mid-November is a good time to start thinking about Christmas because it is not so early that you are branded common by my mother who looks with disdain at folk who have their tree up before December, or that those you keep company with consider you to have too much time on your hands. Leaving it too late risks being branded an ignorant optimist bound only for anxiety and disappointment, however this is more a symptom of the happy-go-lucky male rather than a market-savvy female such as myself.
No, mid-November gives you time enough to put the big day on the backburner and consider it with patience and measurement in that aching crescendo up to Christmas Eve when many females bestowed with responsibility for the happiness of others retreat into their bedrooms, turn off the lights, sit on a roll of wrapping paper crushing its smooth perfection under an arse that has been eating mince pies for five weeks, and have a little cry.
My family Christmas is hugely enjoyable. I think because our family homes have always been in varying states of midden and demolition, we are well versed in the calamity that Christmas brings about. Or else, having a flute of bucks fizz thrust into your hand at 8am in front of the fire and never seeing it empty until it is replaced with some other tipple does much to curb the hysteria.
The run-up begins now for my mother and she shares all this with me in a weird tradition-by-osmosis way. She begins by ordering the turkey and sprouts from the farm (I never see the point as there is a perfectly good selection of frozen bronzes and small cabbages at Waitrose), sighing at the corner the tree will be standing in less than three weeks which is currently decorated with video game paraphenalia and old newspapers, and despairing at the seasonal price hike on Premier Inn rooms as we prepare for the Boxing Day trek up to Scotland for the ‘Christmas Do’.
My father’s side of the family is very civilised and entertains a yearly gathering either at my grandfather’s Glasgow townhouse, my aunty’s Edinburgh family home or my half-sister’s suburban home in Broxburn. The group grows every year and what began as a quiet Boxing Day with the children playing quietly upstairs while the adults sat drinking red wine with Felix the fat Siamese yowling and coursing about their legs like a cross-eyed shark, has now become an affair requiring military-style organisation for a dozen fully-grown and very thirsty twenty-and-thirty-somethings who have no interest in retreating upstairs except to use the toilet, and all the ‘adults’ divide into those who seek shelter in the kitchen (designated drivers, usually) or decide to crack open the single malt and make a night of it.
Because of the exponential rise in what is consumed, last year my Aunty banned presents for those over 20 because providing enough wine, beer and kettle chips was a present enough. Decades have passed, babies have been born, children have grown up and my cousins who have an unmatchable tolerance for vatfulls of lager are ordered to bring their own alcohol, otherwise we would all be left with a single bottle of Cab Sauv between us.
The day can go one of two ways. Either it can be hilarious, everybody has a good time and those who are likely to cause a scene stay away from eachother; or it can be hilarious and people end up crying.
This too requires coaching, for my mother who is invariably the designated driver has to pick up the pieces. Be it telling me off at 18 for wanting to sneak out to Edinburgh town centre with my cousins resulting in a scene in my aunty’s hallway, helping out as one of the many alpha-females my family produces when it comes to doing the washing up, making sure men don’t drink whisky from the bottle etc, and of course sharing the burden of responsibility for the smaller people, or babies to you and I.
Already, this tradition has been inched ever closer to me as I am in fact a member of the family and not a girlfriend who has been brought in for the baptism of fire, and I am to my horror, no longer one of the small people who used to sit at the top of the stairs playing blackjack all day with a packet of crisps and a cup of cola. Men do not have this initiation. Mine began last year when my half sister gave me my niece which I thought would be a temporary hold-the-baby-moment but really I had the little cupcake of a thing fart on me for about four hours.
What next? Being charged with ensuring my father doesn’t drink too much? Actually being responsible for writing Christmas cards from myself and not from my mum and dad and mine and my brothers names scribbled underneath theirs?
Frightening notions.
All this requires training, coaching. That starts now. Mid-November. What better way to kick off the season with the weekend-long preparation of the Christmas cake? I shall write later and tell you all about it.
Filed under: Christmas, family | Leave a Comment
Breaking the ice
Contrary to my previous blog, work is looking up. The ice is breaking, however there are some ponds that simply won’t thaw. Take an instance this week. I sat down with one of the people who runs their days on matters consisting singularly on what customers can complain about. The task in hand was to remove anything which could not be be applicable to the entire year, so statements made about the weather and certain activities had to be scrupulously detected and removed.
After fifteen or so minutes of literally nit-picking and rendering the text (written by a copywriter and not myself otherwise my pride would have been sorely bruised) devoid of any animation whatsoever, I beseeched with a simper that the job was done, wasn’t that funny pandering to that silly pedantry, aren’t our jobs so crazy they could be made into a sit-com?
I think we’ve got all of that. Haha.
Yes. There’s definitely no remaining text which could advertise activities or features unavailable in some months.
A very weak joke springs to mind.
Oh wait – haha, can we write that the mountain drives are available all year or do they pack up the mountains every September and stash them in the attic until March?
Silence.
No.
A swift clearing of my throat was followed with a mumbled ‘thanks for going through this with me’ and I excused myself to bash my head against the bathroom mirror for thirty seconds.
The rest of my ice-breaking has taken a turn for the better. But maybe that is down to the induction day I had to endure on Wednesday?
You know on films and in American TV shows they parody corporate videos produced with the intention to instill camaraderie in their employees. The sort of thing that begins, “Hi, I’m Troy McLure…” Yup, it was one of those.
Myself and three other corporate worker-bees watched the one-woman show that was our employee training course. The woman in question had company passion oozing from every morsel of skin on her body, it made her extremely likeable, even to a die-hard cynic, if not a little frightening. Her sparkling teeth and glittering eyes, even her patterned blouse all played a part in the brain-washing routine that then culminated in three videos all more-or-less dictated by the lyrics of various balads by M-People.
Rather curiously, as the hours dripped by into the afternoon, the cynicism seemed to evaporate and we were given one of the most baffling yet enjoyable tasks I have ever encountered. The subject matter was that of branding. How important is a brand in making a decision? She kicked off this ‘discussion’ with the unfortunate question which went something like this;
So, we all love a biscuit. That’s right, we ALL LOVE a biscuit. I’m a fan of HobNobs myself. A McVities HobNob is my idea of heaven. Because you know McVities get the oats and crunchiness just right, the chocolate tastes right. So when you go into the supermarket and you see the McVities HobNobs next to the own-brand oat-crunch offering. Which do you choose?
This cunning plug for branding unfortunately worked on all the others in the room, however I am immune owing to my parentage. Having come from Scottish stock I am unecessarily tight and unfortunately, saving 5p comes before brand loyalty every time. So, which do I choose? I choose the own-brand. I didn’t say anything however, because our company cheerleader looked as if she may break down mentally if I scuppered her routine. I have too much heart for that.
This carried on the same vein for a little while and then we were directed towards twin piles of three foodstuffs. Ready salted crisps, fondant fancies and ginger nuts. Each twin was sat on respective halves of a sheet of A4 printer paper with A and B written on each half in black board marker. The task was to taste each foodstuff and then identify which was the brand-favorite blind. Of course the point was that we couldn’t possibly identify which was which without having a comforting label to assure us we were not being fooled by some bastard idol.
Unfortunately, cheerleader had underestimated me and my knowlege of the kingdom of crisps, biscuits and cakes. Being a Leicester girl, I have brand loyalty to Walkers, and Walkers crisps taste better than other brands, for starters there is less evidence of the brownish skin rind on their brand and the crisps are that bit paler and box-fresh tasting.
Similarly with the biscuits. Journalism school taught me a great deal about ginger nuts because in most shops the ginger nut is the cheapest tasty biscuit on offer. So I know my McVities from my Spar own-brand or any other. McVities have less cracks and are more tan in colour. Some shop brands are positively orange.
Identifying Mr Kipling was a separate task as fondant fancies rarely feature in my snack repertoire. That I admit was a complete guess which I got wrong because stupidly I went for the one which tasted better.
Anyway. The induction rolled on and finally came to an end and we all went back to work with a new lease of company zeal to infuse into all our workaday tasks.
As ashamed I am to say it, the day did some good in that it gave me some sort of common ground with my colleagues who were genuinely interested in my day and scoffed while they competed at who was the biggest reprobate at their own induction day. An ice wall was broken and work seemed a bit more normal.
The work itself is improving. Less data entry and more creativity. By no means on the level that I entreat from my ultimate ambitions but enough to see that I am in fact earning my salary and not just copying and pasting like a zombie.
No longer the new girl, two new new girls are due pretty shortly which cheers me up because it means I won’t be the most useless person on the editorial team (until they surpass me after the first week as I have heard my boss refer to them as ‘too over-qualified’).
We are being moved very soon into our new teams. Rather than managing individual areas and dealing with them for huge numbers of publications and brands, we are going to master one brand and all the individual areas. I.E. I currently manage Cyrpus, Tunisia and a handful of others, and I have to adapt each text for the dozens of brands the organisation publishes. Instead, I will be charged with one brand but all the countries. To me this makes much more sense however some of my more long in the tooth colleagues are still bemused.
I remain at arms length from everything I am doing. The guard is aching to come down but I am not comfortable enough yet. The chance to correct, fiddle-with and consult grammatically incorrect text is a real pleasure, if extremely dorky. I long to be challenged, however, and I hope next time I write about work I will be asking for less challenges rather than pining for more.
Filed under: Aspirations, Business, editorial, employment, Uncategorized, Work, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: awkward, bad jokes, biscuits, Brands, corporate videos, crisps, editorial, employment, enthusiasm, grammar, jokes, M People, New, team building, travel, Writing
Being the new girl
I suppose it would be quite an anticlimax if I didn’t mention how my first week of work went. After all, I did spend months whinging about being unemployed and so surely writing about being employed in the media is much more interesting?
This last week has been one of the longest in my life apart from periods of major examinations at school and university of course.
For those of you who do not know, I have been given a standard lower-end of the pay scale media job as a member of the editorial team for a well-known travel organisation. The building I work in is a large, blue sardine tin nestled around a vast, grey car park fringed with dozens more large blue sardine tins. Unlike Bloomberg’s opulent offices in the Capital or the shiny, modern Guardian Media Group building in Manchester – I am plunged back to reality. This is what the first rung has to be unless your daddy chums it up with the players on Fleet Street. Glamour has very little to do with a job’s appeal to me, after all, I picked Journalism as my choice career and not… well to be honest there are very few jobs out there that are glamourous 100% of the time that spring to mind. Victoria Beckham, whatever she does, that seems to be quite glamorous.
Anyway, meeting, greeting and forgetting names followed by pictures taken for my security pass, a tour of the canteen and the girl’s loos, here’s your desk, ok.
Only a week in and I have been given actual countries to look after and style guides for the differing publications to revise. Style guides like I have never encountered before. Style guides to my mind denote tone of voice, use of certain vocabulary and stock phrases and writing with a particular demographic in mind with the notion of creativity piping into the work you do at the same time. The style guides I have been studying are disected to the point of obsession. The omission of sentences in favour of bullet points, removing full stops at the ends of sentences, not mentioning about hairdressers.
On Friday I found myself wondering if I would ever actually get to do any writing. Considering on journalism work experience you are given reams of picture stories to write up and chase for interviews, I have to admit missing the creativity and speaking to human beings and using my short hand except when taking notes from one of my very sweet senior colleagues.
How much can you tell from a week? I am busy enough to know I am earning my salary but I am not sure how comfortable I am yet. In all honesty, I feel quite different from my colleagues, but maybe that is just down to being the new girl.
And so when I go into work tomorrow I will be combing through ready-prepared text on the system and changing it to fit in with the style guide. No actual writing. More copying, pasting and making sentences into bullet points where applicable.
All of the above misgivings can be put down to being new but at this stage, not only do I miss my journalism classmates from Salford like crazy, but I miss Journalism.
I can relate all of this to being seven years old and starting at my new school in Leicester after moving down from Glasgow. Literally no friends, in the eyes of other seven year olds I might as well have been beamed down from Mars, and I was nervous, looking around for Dairsie House and the teachers that knew me and talked like me. Same feeling but one I haven’t had since moving down to England. Not even moving to Secondary school or Uni replicated this. Secondary school, you go there with loads of other kids from your old school and Uni everybody’s new and drinking heavily to get over the first week. This was cold turkey-style newness and having gone through it before, I know it doesn’t last very long.
But still, I have a nagging doubt.
Maybe I’m not cut out for editorial work, maybe I’m meant to be a reporter. I’m worried that I’m not going to be pushed hard enough.
Still, early days, early days. And at least I get to wear nice shoes (reporters don’t wear heels because there’s to much leg-work) and I’m getting paid more than a trainee reporter. The deadlines are the same with this job which is exciting, speaking to people based all around the world is fun too. The stuff I proofread is incredible and nothing if not inspiring! Touring Borneo, majestic 5* resorts in Dubai, boutique hotels in Paris, sprawling villas on tiny Greek Islands, what adventurous youngster could resist?
Stay tuned, and hopefully my next blog will be full of the exciting people I have spoken to and the amazing places I have written about.
Filed under: Aspirations, employment, Writing | 1 Comment
Tags: Doubt, editorial, Journalism, nerves, new job, reporter, style guides, Work
The reformation of the Government which was promised to us in 1996 has, if nothing else, reversed and regressed back to the bad old days of pomp and hierarchy. The whole ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitude of The Commons stinks. There is no better word to encompass my feeling towards the last weeks of reluctant coughing up of ill-gotten expense claims and wild, almost archaeic and dated notions of what The House of Commons is supposed to be. The clue is in the name.
I was watching Question Time’s Llanndudno edition last night and praying the demon pumping citric acid up Jacqui Smith’s rectum would stop because her face alone was a sour enough response to the fire she was under from an insightful man in the audience who had clearly done his homework and taken the MP quite by surprise. The audience member lobbed huge numbers at her and, for a period which must have felt like a long drawn-out colonic to residents of Spin Land, the camera switched from the audience to Smith to the audience to Smith exaggerating her incredulous expression all the more.
The question was more or less, why didn’t she have to pay back the sum equivalent to a journalist’s salary, on the expenses she claimed on her sister’s house? Smith’s answer was that the committe overseeing all duck-pond type expenses had let her off (lots of reasons, none of which the public are likely to remember or care about). So why, the gentelman says, is she listening to what a committe thinks and not what the voters think en mass? Jacqui Smith deflected this with another milk-curdling expression that she was doing what she was told by the committee, they had decided what would happen. A huge reel of stoney-faced ‘unreserved apologies’ cascaded out when the audience piped up, predictably, about adult videos, and the matter was swiftly muffled by that which serves a such a magnificent distraction – sleeze.
That did not make reassuring viewing. It is no good only making changes to a corrupt system when people take notice, and not the other 99.9% of the time. Just as it is no good apologising and writing a healthy summed cheque just because a committee tells you to, or indeed the opposite and puting the cheque book back in your handbag when a committee lets you off, much like offering to buy a drink for a friend in the pub and they tell you they’ll get this round. Purse goes back in the bag, you get the G&T you would have bought anyway and had the money for but your mate puts it on his tab. Bob’s your uncle. All of the Government’s money is just one huge bar tab now anyway, isn’t it? Too bad we’re a trillion pounds in debt.
I can’t put my finger on what out of the whole segment of QT that bothered me the most – after all it could have just been the expression on Smith’s face, but overall it was like watching a really bad parallell park that you know is never going to happen but the bloody driver keeps shifting anyway rather than drive off and find a better parking space.
Perhaps it was the shocked reaction and ‘this is ridiculous’ attitude that could have so easily been spluttered by my own MP, Alan Duncan, during his August rant about MPs living on ‘rations’ now all eyes are on their claims and extravagances. To them it is like the builders are in to work on their member’s club and they’re coming inside and using the newly carpeted upstairs toilets.
This attitude was then refreshed while listening to a breakfast report on today’s milestone Youth Parliament debate taking place in the Commons. Forgive me, but I can’t remember the name of the politician being questioned as I was flinging together what ended up being a really disgusting salad, however, the gist was that he didn’t believe the UKYP holidng a debate in the Commons was appropriate.
Hello? Democracy calling! Who does he think the Commons belongs to? It’s not his mother’s front room reserved for the vicar and the president of the gardening club! The UKYP are a legitimate, political organisation supporiting mainstream parties and their views and voicing the needs and suggestions of a young generation which is frequently misconstrued or ignored by patronising, snobby, old fogies. The Commons belongs to the people, it is the place the MPs we have elected get across our best interests and it is not a private members club. Because that is what needs to be changed otherwise more serious problems will arise at the next election, namely extreme parties growing in popularity because extreme changes do need to be made where the system is concerned.
The more we dig up, the more politicians seem to receed back into this little club, be it relying on a committee to give them an excuse and a get-out-of-jail-free card (a mere board-game trifle that seems very apt given the current mood) and the Houses of Parliament and all the perks that come with it. It is a giant members-only lounge for some people who need to be made aware that even without the perks, with just their basic net earnings they still have it a whole lot better than most of the people in this country and so they can afford to release some of their hot air and float back down to earth and understand just what we, the people, think of them.
Filed under: News, Politics, Uncategorized, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alan Duncan, committee, Commons, election, expenses, House of Commons, Jacqui Smith, members club, pomp, Question Time, UKYP, voters
